Case Study: Jeb’s Fleet Auto is a distributor of bulk customized automobiles and

Question

Case Study:

Jeb’s Fleet Auto is a distributor of bulk customized automobiles and trucks for business and government customers. They buy cars and trucks in large volumes from major automobile manufacturers, customize the vehicles according to the client’s specifications, and deliver them to the customer site.

One important process for Jeb’s Fleet Auto is the contracts process, since the contract must contain detailed descriptions of what Jeb’s mechanics will do to customize the vehicles and a carefully worded financial statement of what the customer will pay to Jeb’s for the vehicles.

The documented process for drafting a customer contract is presented below.

Two problems have recently come up in this process:

1.       The contracts process is intended to take fewer than 5 days, but it currently takes more than 15. The approval stages are taking considerably longer than expected as the senior manager, legal, and finance all have new requirements of language to be inserted in contracts to reduce the company’s liability.

2.       Customers are noticing major errors in the drafting of the contracts. The most common errors are in the section on pricing, though there are also errors in the vehicle specifications the customer has requested. Recently the errors in vehicle specifications led to the return of a major customer order, costing Jeb’s a significant amount of money.

As the OD consultant it will be your role to help the team come to agreement about how to resolve these problems in the contracts process.

Consider the following:

1.       What concepts from Chapter 11 will be important to consider or apply to this case?

2.       What intervention(s) would you create to help the team? Would you create a workshop or event? How might that be structured? What would be your role?

3.       What do you expect will be the challenges in working with this team? What questions will you ask to begin the discussion?

4.       Role play a facilitated discussion between the salesperson, contract specialist, senior manager, legal, and finance about this process. After the discussion, reflect on what went well and what you would do differently.

In an essay, using 6th Edition APA format, respond to the requirements

textbook: Anderson, D. (2014). Organization Development: The process of leading organizational change. 3rd Ed. Sage

Explanation / Answer

Concept of Oganisational DDevelopment interventions are sets of structured activities in which selected organizational units (target group or individuals) engage in a task or a sequence of tasks with the goal of organizational improvement and individual development.

As an OD consultant we would have to create a workshop which can bring together the people in the organisation from all different functions (Sales, Contracts, Finance, Legal & the higher management). Just before this combined workshop, there has to be a briefing to the management about the whole strategy to be implemented while conducting the workshop as well as after the workshop to change the contrcts proces effectively.

Structure the activity so that it contains both experiencebased learning and conceptual learning.

Biggest challlenge in urging the people during is to get them accept the realistic currnet status of the contracts process. To begin the discussion following questions can be asked:

What do you think is the goal for completing the contract for a new customer order?

Is the current state o

f process to create the contract satisfactory?

Is it possible to improve the contrct lead time & complete it in 5 days?

The role play preparation & willingness of each employee to participate in the role of his / her interest (find out)

During the role play, Structure the it so that individuals are engaged as whole persons, not segmented persons. It means calling into play role demands, thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and strivings. Climate of the activity has to be such that individuals are “freed Up” rather than anxious or defensive. Role play activity should be such individuals learn about both task and process. The task is what the group is working on,term process refers to how the group is working and what else is going on as participants work on the task, including the group’s processes and dynamics, individual styles of interacting and behaving, and so on.

Results from intervention are expected to give feedback by confrontation to the people, make them aware of the sociocultural changes around, increase their efficiency, increase accountability & optimism in work.

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